


The Only Way Out is Through

by ChocoboValentine (Chajiko)



Category: Gundam Wing
Genre: Blood, Catastrophic crash, Gen, Injury, Shot down
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-21
Updated: 2015-03-21
Packaged: 2018-03-18 23:18:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,473
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3587736
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chajiko/pseuds/ChocoboValentine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Shot down over just on the fringes of the Earth's atmosphere, Sandrock plummets to Earth and strands an injured Quatre in the middle of a vast wasteland.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Only Way Out is Through

**Author's Note:**

> Oh lordy. This needs so much editing and I need to add like, 20% more to the ending. It was butt o'clock in the morning when I finished and I didn't even re-read. UGH.

Whatever struck Sandrock, it hit the enormous mobile suit hard. Suddenly Quatre was surrounded by red light and screaming alarms as damage reports flooded in, filling his interface enough to partially mask the dizzying whirl of the stars as Sandrock screamed out of control.

Fire filled his vision as the Gundam plunged back into Earth's atmosphere. Several of Quatre's screens blanked out, and smoke poured from at least one console. The heat had become unbearable, and even his insulated flight suit couldn't protect him fully from it.  

He was tumbling; Sandrock had screamed into the atmosphere out of control, and no amount of struggle or skill on Quatre's part could bring it back to an even keel. He was running out of airspace quickly--the horizon swept past what little he could see of the world beyond, and every glimpse brought the enormity of Earth closer--

\--the crash was horrific. Even Quatre's stamina wasn't enough to withstand the ruin of the great machine as it collapsed around him, and it was with a stab of guilt mingled with relief that he gave way to the darkness that opened before him.

When he again woke, the cockpit was lighted only by one cracked emergency light, flickering overhead. The others were nowhere to be seen--shattered and crushed, no doubt, by the ruin of the monstrous weapon that had once been his greatest ally.

Sandrock was done for.  Despite its strength, Gundamium alloy couldn't withstand the heat of the uncontrolled entry, especially after whatever damage had been done by whatever it was that had struck the suit.  Add to that the sheer impact of freefall through so many thousands of feet to the surface of Earth--

"I'm lucky to be alive," Quatre said, mostly to convince himself that his aching head and face were still functional.  All of him hurt, he realised, as he tried to shift in his seat.  He reached to unbuckle the safety restraints and flinched even as they snapped back, the bones in his left hand grinding ominously.

The crash cage around the pilot's seat had prevented him from being crushed, he blearily realised as he shifted about, trying to reach for the emergency hatch release on the left-hand side of a cracked and smoldering panel with his right hand.  The movement pulled muscles sharply across his chest, and Quatre grimly added "ribs" to his mental list of damage.

The emergency light flickered out and stayed out,

Quatre felt panic bloom in his chest, and he crushed it fiercely even as he groped wildly for the hatch release.  He found it, gave one almighty tug--and the hatch blew open, flooding the cockpit with bitterly cold air. It was dark out save for the light of a half moon and a glorious expanse of stars, and the familiar smell of sand was on the wind, along with a tang that he vaguely recognised as salt.

"Coastal," he said out loud, and was alarmed at the rough unevenness of his voice as he groped desperately for the small survival kit strapped under his seat.  

It wasn't there.  A few moments frantic search found it--crushed into a shapeless lump of steelplast by the force of a support strut that had twisted alarmingly out of place from where it had run up behind the bulkhead at the rear of Quatre's seat.

Struggling up and out of the seat, Quatre was fervently grateful that he was in his full flight-suit and jacket--the air was so cold it stung his lungs, almost distracting him from a stab of pain in his left hip that seemed to originate somewhere over his hip. There were numerous other smaller injuries that he hadn't even yet bothered to categorise, and he left rusty handprints on the ruined cockpit as he hauled himself up and to the edge of the cockpit.

The smell of brine on the air had been misleading--that or he hadn't actually smelled it at all, perhaps.  But no--it was there, hanging in the cold air. Before him, at what was left of the feet of Sandrock, stretched a bizarre desert of ethereal white.  It stretched off in all directions, and even his sight failed to find an edge to it.  It was cracked and shattered and bizarrely caved in about the wreckage, almost like clay as the network of spidery breaks threaded their way over the silvery ground, but no clay ever glowed so white under a moonless sky.  

Quatre hesitated a long moment before lowering himself to the ground. At least--he TRIED to lower himself.  What happened instead was a slip of one set of numbed and bloody fingers from the singed metal of his wrecked Suit, and he fell. Fifteen feet had never seemed like much to him, but the moments of falling seemed to last forever, and the stars blurred strangely above him as he hit the ground hard.

He blinked, and the stars had moved.  He knew that he must have lost consciousness--a blow on the head from the fall, or the effects of shock overcoming his enhanced system, but panic jerked again in his chest, and he again forced it back ruthlessly. It was with exaggerated care that he sat up, a fierce ache in his head. Quatre slowly began to climb to his feet, but the moment he set his right hand down on the ground, the lacerated skin lit up with a fiery burn, and he lost his breath for a moment from the simple shock of it.  He reeled to his feet, leaning unsteadily against the wreckage, and stared down at where he had fallen.  The ground was shattered and cracked and broken down into muddy blackness as it was under Sandrock, and the mark that showed where his head had rested glinted faintly with the russet gleam of congealing blood.

Very carefully Quatre brought his shaking right hand to his face and stared at it, looking hard at the white residue that now coated half of his body. All at once he understood, and he blanched. Of all the places Sandrock could have fallen, he had dropped straight into the center of a salt flat--some monstrous desert devoid of life and shelter, and who knew how far from anything resembling civilisation, never mind medical help.

There was no choice. Quatre stared across the broken expanse in blanched silence, and then he began to walk.

The catalogue of hurts grew as he went, and it was not helped by the myriad pains of trying to walk across the flats. The thin top layer of salt cracked and broke under his feet, leaving jagged pieces sticking up and to the sides, just the right height for slashing ankles, shins and knees. The mud below the ice was equally hellish. It was thick as treacle and clung to his feet as he stumbled on, causing more than one painful fall onto the salt.

Quatre grimly counted his steps, keeping his eyes on his path rather than looking to the way ahead. Even if there had been some distant landmark by which he could gauge the distance, taking his gaze from his feet would mean yet another fall, and he didn't know how many more such falls his flagging strength could withstand.

It was the wind which finally defeated him.  After what felt like endless years of stumbling along, it came howling across the flats like all the ifreets of the night. On it blew countless tiny knives in the form of loose salt crystals, driving Quatre before it even as they tore at his skin and eyes, pain blossoming anew in every wound. Finally he sank to his knees, his back to the wind, and huddled himself as small as he could inside his flight jacket before curling on his side. He didn't expect to sleep, but eventually exhaustion overcame him and he slept.

It was the crushing thirst which finally woke him--that or the pounding pain in his skull. Or the oven-like heat.  Quatre wasn't really sure, but he found that he didn't really care. The wind had died and the sun had risen, burning into his eyes and turning the salt flats into a vast mirror-mirage, like a frozen hell turned all icy flame and brimstone. He was alarmed to find that he could not get his right eye to focus on all this, though his sight was as sharp as ever in his left eye. He shifted and groaned aloud as his body fairly screamed in protest, then raised a hand and cautiously explored the right side of his head.

The wound took no effort to find. The skin of his scalp was slashed and abraded, and blood caked his hair to his head. As his fingers probed further back he was suddenly overcome by fierce, sickening pain which lanced ruthlessly through his skull.  He bent double and retched what little there was in his stomach onto the ground and then reeled to his feet, clutching his coat.

Quatre was facing east--the sun had not been long up, and now he could see the shadows of mountains in the distance. He put a hand to his face, knowing that soon enough the glare off of the salt would cause him to lose what little clear sight he still had--and then was suddenly struck.  He fumbled at his neck and found with relief that Rashid's goggles were still there, and were still intact. Quatre carefully slid them into place, ignoring the pain in his head as the darkened lenses blocked out the worst of the blinding reflected light. He squared his shoulders, dropped his gaze to his feet, and went on.

The thirst, the brightness, the heat, the pain--they all worsened as the sun rose with aching ferocity into the vault of the sky. It beat remorselessly down on him, feeling almost like a physical weight across his shoulders. His mouth felt shriveled and dry, and his body burned, but he did not dare shed any of his clothing. Not only would sunburn sap him utterly, but the night would again come with its frigid winds. He had draped the coat over his head, protecting against sunburn on the back of his neck.  He couldn't save his face, though--even as the light and heat reflected from the ground, so did the light. The skin already felt hot and tight, and he knew that he would be badly burned by the time night fell.

It felt a century later when the sun finally sank in the East, and immediately the temperature began to drop. Quatre struggled doggedly on, but eventually sank to the ground and lay without moving for a long time. Eventually he dragged himself again to huddle in the shelter of his coat, and he fell into a sleep that felt more like unconsciousness than actual sleep.

The next day was worse. Everything was magnified, and he had begun to flag badly. The mountains in the distance hadn't seem to get any closer, and Quatre had no idea how many miles he'd come through his crystalline hell, or how much farther it stretched on before him. Everything was crusted with salt--his mouth, nose and eyes, the wounds on head and body.  His flightsuit shed a tiny rain of crystals as he moved, and he could neither taste or smell anything but the hateful briney stench of mud and crust.

It was at sundown on the second day that the wind came up in a howling roar, hours earlier than he had anticipated. Taken off guard, Quatre staggered and stumbled and went down on one knee--and then collapsed entirely. He was only vaguely aware of the roar as it increased in volume, and then suddenly there was the sound of running footsteps.

"I'm dying," Quatre thought vaguely, too weak to even move his cracked lips enough to speak the words. "Hallucinations, then unconsciousness, and then death--"

Hands gripped him. Quatre hissed and tried to pull away as salt dug into his skin, and the hands softened their hold.

"Quatre."

The voice was unmistakable. Quatre opened his eyes and looked up into the face of Heero, stern and unsmiling as ever. Quatre tried to shape the name of his brother-in-arms, but all that came from his throat was a dry wheeze.

"He's alive," Heero snapped the words off over his shoulder over the roar that had become almost deafening to Quatre's dazed senses. "Brief Sally and get the stretcher out here."

More footsteps. Swearing--that was Duo, of course. The hands that lifted him, though, were that of Trowa and Wufei. As he was settled onto the stretcher Quatre let his head fall to one side, losing himself in the relief of it all.

Quatre belatedly recognised the roar and wind as the by-products of the heavy-duty chopper that Wufei had landed with consummate skill on the dangerous terrain. As he was lifted inside the helicopter more hands were on him, these gentle and skilled as they probed his wounds.

"Get this flight suit off of him," Sally snapped as Trowa pulled the hatch of the chopper closed and the machine jolted into the air with more speed than care. Then Sally's hands were sliding off the goggles and there was a light in his eyes. He heard someone swear and felt fingers sliding along the wound in his scalp--and then he knew no more.

It was the soft beep of a heart monitor that first penetrated the darkness. Slowly the rest of his mind woke as he registered the sound, and he opened his eyes to find himself staring at the ceiling of a hospital room. He shifted and made as though to sit up, but a firm hand on his chest stopped him.

"No," Heero said, rising from the chair he had occupied to stand next to the bed.

"Heero," Quatre said a little blankly, and then looked about to see Duo and Trowa both asleep in chairs in various poses of exhaustion. The glass panel in the door showed a brief glimpse of a fierce profile--Wufei was standing watch, ever vigilant as he was.

"I thought--" Quatre's throat closed, and he felt tears welling in his eyes. "I thought it was a dream. I thought I was dying, and no one would ever find me. I was abandoned, and I'd never see any of you again."

"No," Heero said, and didn't move away with Quatre covered his hand with his own. "You're never abandoned.  None of us are."  He nodded at Trowa and Duo, and to the door. "That's part of being what we are, Quatre.  As long as even one of us breathes, none of us is ever alone."

**  
-おわり-**


End file.
